Book Launch: “Greenpeace in the Circumpolar North: Lessons Learned from the Anti-Sealing Era”

Friday – 23 January 2026 – 11:00am – 12:00pm EST

Online launch of Dr Danita Catherine Burke’s new book, Greenpeace in the Circumpolar North: Lessons Learned from the Anti-Sealing Era (Routledge 2025).

The book explores Greenpeace’s efforts to expand its engagement in the Circumpolar North in the 21st century and how this work is affected and informed by the organization’s controversial legacy of anti-sealing campaigning in the 1970s and 1980s. Presenting the fallout for peoples and cultures targeted by Greenpeace’s anti-sealing campaigning as a pivotal dimension to the organization’s history, the book argues that this history must first be acknowledged in order to understand how Greenpeace has developed more positive working relationships in some instances with northern Indigenous peoples in recent years. The book looks to dispel the misconception that Greenpeace is universally rejected in the Circumpolar North, whilst also highlighting that its engagement and alliances are being built in the shadow of its yet-to-be fully tackled history as a leading part of the anti-sealing movement. Greenpeace in the Circumpolar North is ideal for courses and research with a focus on Arctic studies, environmental activism, and Indigenous studies, and for those interested in learning more about the complex legacy of Greenpeace.

Dr Danita Catherine Burke is a senior research fellow based at the Center for War Studies, University of Southern Denmark in Odense, Denmark, where she works on issues such as Arctic diplomacy, security, stigma and cultural violence in Arctic and sub-Arctic environmental and animal rights activism, sovereignty assertion, and Canada’s relationship and identification with the North. She is also the founder of the Women in the Arctic and Antarctic initiative. Burke completed her PhD studies in International Politics at Aberystwyth University in 2016, supported by a fellowship from the Rothermere Foundation. Since 2016, Dr Burke’s academic work is based in Denmark and her research has been supported by the Carlsberg Foundation, Horizon 2020 (Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellowship), the JR Smallwood Foundation for Newfoundland and Labrador Studies, Northern Scholar Visiting Fellow (from IASH, University of Edinburgh), Joan Mitchell Travel Award (from Wilfrid Laurier University) and the Nordic Arctic Programme.

As an IASH Northern fellow, Burke was supported to complete her latest book “Greenpeace in the Circumpolar North: Lessons Learned from the Anti-Sealing Era”, published in November 2025 with Routledge. This book stems from the IASH supported project Moral Legitimacy, Stigma and Environmental Activism in the 21st Century: Greenpeace in the Arctic completed in 2023-25. This research project examines the implications of environmental activism on perceptions of an environmentalist non-governmental organisation’s moral legitimacy. Specifically, the project explores the experiences of Greenpeace and its challenges engaging Arctic/sub-Arctic audiences because of its role in the anti-sealing movement and the movement’s violent legacy including cultural destruction and threats to murder children.

Other publications by Burke include: Cultural Violence, Stigma and the Legacy of the Anti-Sealing Movement (Routledge, 2023), WWF and Arctic Environmentalism: Conservationism and the ENGO in the Circumpolar North (Manchester University Press, 2022). Some of her other publications include: “The Case for a Greenpeace Apology to Newfoundland and Labrador” (The Northern Review, 2021), “Re-establishing Legitimacy after Stigmatization: Greenpeace in the North American North” (Polar Record, 2020), Diplomacy and the Arctic Council (McGill-Queens University Press, 2019), International Disputes and Cultural Ideas in the Canadian Arctic: Arctic Sovereignty in the National Consciousness (Palgrave Macmillan, 2018).

Burke is presently the principal investigator of the Nordic Arctic Programme supported project “Seals, Stigma and Survival: Finding Solutions to the EU Stigmatization of Seal Hunting.” You can learn more about Dr Burke on her Women in the Arctic and Antarctic profile and her University of Southern Denmark webpage.

Feature Image: “Diving seal” by adavies is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0.